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MOVIE GUIDE

A selective listing by critics of The Times of new or noteworthy movies and film series playing this weekend in New York City. * denotes a highly recommended film or series. The ratings and running times are in parentheses. An index of reviews of films opening today appears on

Page 6.

Now Playing

''AUTUMN IN NEW YORK,'' starring Richard Gere and Winona Ryder. Directed by Joan Chen (PG-13, 105 minutes). In this embarrassing 1940's-style weepie, Mr. Gere is a superstar Manhattan chef and ''older man,'' a la Cary Grant, and Ms. Ryder the kooky, doe-eyed 22-year-old hat designer who reforms him. Oh yes, she happens to be dying of a rare heart disease and has only a year to live. It isn't the actors' fault that this oil-and-water mixture of 40's suds (Ms. Ryder's character grows more ethereally beautiful the sicker she gets) and millennial sexual angst doesn't jell (Stephen Holden).

''BLESS THE CHILD,'' starring Kim Basinger, Rufus Sewell and Jimmy Smits. Directed by Chuck Russell (R, 115 minutes). A runny supernatural soap opera -- the first thriller of the ''Touched by an Angel'' era -- that tries for the elegant calm of ''The Sixth Sense'' but fails. It is too often overcome by its flamboyantly cheesy reflexes. Ms. Basinger is the protector aunt of a child (the gifted Holliston Coleman) whose heavenly powers make her the target of an evil cult leader (Mr. Sewell, chewing his English accent as if it were sunflower seeds). He means to kill her before Easter; you may feel the need to leave long before then. ''Bless the Child'' seems derivative of so many other movies that you're surprised it doesn't have to credit its sources the way hip-hop artists do when they sample songs. With Mr. Smits as an F.B.I. agent and Ian Holm as a priest who does a laughable steal from ''The Usual Suspects'' (Elvis Mitchell).

''BRING IT ON,'' starring Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Bradford and Eliza Dushku. Directed by Peyton Reed (PG-13, 110 minutes). Even though it does feature young women bouncing around in skimpy outfits, this cheerleader comedy directed with giddy, sometimes sloppy pep-rally intensity by Mr. Reed from a brisk, slangy script by Jessica Bendinger, is more than a low-minded appeal to male lechery. Bound by the conventions of the sports movie and the teenage romantic comedy, ''Bring It On'' nonetheless has a fine satirical edge, and at least glances at some serious issues of race and sexuality. It's also a vehicle for the vibrant comic talents of Ms. Dunst, ably supported by Mr. Bradford as her cute, nonconformist love interest, and Ms. Dushku as his sister (A. O. Scott).

''THE CELL,'' starring Jennifer Lopez, Vincent D'Onofrio and Vince Vaughn. Directed by Tarsem Singh (R, 110 minutes). A serial killer named Stargher (Mr. D'Onofrio), who abducts women and imprisons them in a Plexiglas cell that slowly fills with water, has a seizure and goes into a coma. His latest victim is trapped in his cell, and she has to be found before the automated torture takes her life. An F.B.I. agent (Mr. Vaughn) talks a child psychologist (Ms. Lopez) into using an experimental technique to enter the killer's subconscious. Mr. Singh's talents haven't quite jelled into storytelling yet. He folds this tale over and over on itself, working with a script that blends elements of ''The Silence of the Lambs,'' ''Manhunter,'' ''The Matrix,'' ''Seven,'' ''Dreamscape'' and ''Spellbound'' with the stop-motion animation of the brothers Quay (''Street of Crocodiles''), the moody photography of Matt Mahurin, the paintings of Francis Bacon and so many other things that there's no there there (Mitchell).

''THE CREW,'' starring Richard Dreyfuss, Burt Reynolds, Dan Hedaya and Seymour Cassel. Directed by Michael Dinner (PG-13, 88 minutes). This sloppy, cliche-ridden comedy about four aging mobsters blundering their way through a series of unlikely capers has moments of wit, provided by Barry Fanaro's overplotted script and Mr. Hedaya's priceless goofing. But the picture, with no clear idea of what it wants to do, lurches between slapstick and sentimentality, wasting the talents of Mr. Dreyfuss, Mr. Cassel and Lainie Kazan. Mr. Reynolds, meanwhile, absurdly cast as a New Jersey mafioso, looks as bored and grouchy as the audience will be after 88 minutes of this mess (Scott).

''HOLLOW MAN,'' starring Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue. Directed by Paul Verhoeven (R, 114 minutes). Mr. Verhoeven's sluggish new special-effects thriller takes a tantalizing premise -- the corrupting effects of invisibility -- and drowns it in horror-movie hack work. Mr. Bacon plays an egomaniacal scientist who injects himself with a serum that disrupts his ''quantum synchronization with the visible universe.'' You can guess the rest. He ends up pursuing his colleagues (including his ex-girlfriend, played by Ms. Shue) through a labyrinthine underground laboratory, looking, thanks to computer-generated imagery, like a plasticine anatomical model on a rampage (Scott).

* ''THE ORIGINAL KINGS OF COMEDY,'' starring Steve Harvey, D. L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac. Directed by Spike Lee (R, 117 minutes). Filmed before a live audience on two nights in February in Charlotte, N.C., the self-proclaimed Kings of Comedy swagger across the stage, urban legends in resplendent outfits. Until a couple of years ago the comedians' exposure was limited mostly to cable television. Here their comedy gives audiences that have never seen anything like it a hilarious window on a new world. They display their chops when they talk about family, specifically African-American family with roots in the South (Mitchell).

''NUTTY PROFESSOR II: THE KLUMPS,'' starring Eddie Murphy and Janet Jackson. Directed by Peter Segal (PG-13, 105 minutes). In this sequel Mr. Murphy again displays enough agility to show that he deserves to be taken seriously. Parts of the film, a variation on the Jekyll and Hyde story, are tremendously funny. Every scene in which Mr. Murphy, hidden away under millions of dollars' worth of transformative makeup, plays all the members of the Klump family -- all of them together in some scenes -- will knock the blues right out of you. But some of the cheap laughs to which the picture stoops will give you the blues. This makes ''Nutty Professor II'' half a movie at best. The broad humor at times derails Mr. Murphy's performances, but the film provides a vehicle for him to display his reach (Mitchell).

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''ORFEU,'' starring Toni Garrido and Patricia Franca. Directed by Carlos Diegues (not rated, 110 minutes). The Brazilian director's updating of -- and corrective to -- Marcel Camus's beloved 1959 film ''Black Orpheus'' -- suffers from trying to do too much at once, to be both mythic and realistic, to celebrate Rio's rich culture while exposing the brutality and cynicism that dominate daily life in its slums. But in spite of uneven acting and a chaotic script, ''Orfeu'' manages to keep its contradictory energies from exploding all over the place, and in the end its satisfactions outnumber its frustrations. This is partly thanks to Caetano Veloso's eclectic score, though Alfonso Beato's lovely cinematography and the violence and vitality of Rio itelf don't hurt (Scott).

''THE REPLACEMENTS,'' starring Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman. Directed by Howard Deutch (PG-13, 105 minutes). This negligible jock comedy, about a group of misfit macho clowns who suit up for pro football during a players' strike just wants to be loved: Is that so wrong? This rehashed and desperate picture stars Mr. Reeves as the honorable, stoic fill-in quarterback. (He glides through.) Mr. Hackman musters his requisite command as the honorable, stoic fill-in coach in a wardrobe from the Tom Landry Collection, mouthing dialogue from ''Hoosiers'' and old United Airlines commercials. The unvaried ragtag scab players include a pair of violent bodyguard brothers (Faison Love and Michael Taliferro), a violent cop (Jon Favreau) and a violent felon on loan to the league (Michael Jace). Brooke Langton is the cheerleader who resolves not to date players and dates Mr. Reeves anyway. It's a peculiarity from L.A., a union town: a film that celebrates antiunion activity (Mitchell).

''SAVING GRACE,'' starring Brenda Blethyn and Craig Ferguson. Directed by Nigel Cole (R, 93 minutes). This innocuous piece of comic Anglophilia features the usual cast of lovable British eccentrics plopped down in a picturesque seaside spot, in this case a Cornish village. Ms. Blethyn is Grace, a widow whose husband committed suicide, leaving her $450,000 in debt and in danger of losing her lovely stone house. She and her resourceful gardener (Mr. Ferguson, who also wrote the screenplay) convert her greenhouse into a marijuana farm, and the resulting high jinks resemble a twee hybrid of ''The Full Monty'' and the lesser works of Cheech and Chong (Scott).

* ''SPACE COWBOYS,'' starring Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner. Directed by Mr. Eastwood. The second half of Mr. Eastwood's new movie is a pleasant reworking of the standard trouble-in-space movie, with Mr. Eastwood himself leading a heroic team of astronauts that also includes Mr. Jones, Mr. Sutherland and Mr. Garner. But the first half, which consists of the comic, tough-old-guy interplay among these four sublime actors, is a boisterous, easygoing tribute to manhood and maturity. Mr. Sutherland and Mr. Jones are in especially fine form, as are Marcia Gay Harden, playing a NASA engineer, and James Cromwell as (once again) the villainous bureaucrat who tries to deny the old-timers their shot at celestial glory (Scott).

''STEAL THIS MOVIE!,'' starring Vincent D'Onofrio and Janeane Garofalo, Directed by Robert Greenwald (R, 108 minutes). The likable but muddled screen biography of the yippie activist Abbie Hoffman paints that left-wing merry prankster and inventor of the ''politics of joy'' as a free-spirited innocent who became a political martyr. Mr. D'Onofrio may not look much like Hoffman, but he radiates the right antic, rabble-rousing energy. And Ms. Garofalo, as his loyal wife, Anita, conveys a brooding critical intelligence. But the movie, to its detriment, glosses over the highlights of Hoffman's late-1960's activist career to concentrate on the sad story of his persecution by the F.B.I. and his years as a fugitive (Holden).

''WHAT LIES BENEATH,'' starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford. Directed by Robert Zemeckis (PG-13, 130 minutes). Mr. Zemeckis's film takes its time in laying out the story of high-strung Claire (Ms. Pfeiffer), who is dissolving into hysteria regularly. Her daughter has just gone off to college and Claire is still recovering from the trauma of a car accident. Then her house starts showing signs of being haunted. Her husband, Norman (Mr. Ford), is a driven research scientist with a secret. This thriller is as implausibly chilling as any ''X-Files'' episode. By the last 10 minutes, your interest will have long vanished (Mitchell).

''X-MEN,'' starring Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Halle Berry and Anna Paquin. Directed by Bryan Singer (PG-13, 105 minutes). The long-awaited arrival of Marvel Comics' do-gooder mutants is mildly fun on a couple of levels: for one, the acting duel between Mr. Stewart (as the mutant telepath Professor X, the X-Men's leader) and Ian McKellen (as the mutant nemesis Magneto, who possesses the power of supermagnetism). As these two austere hams trill their vowels at each other, you get the feeling that you really are watching members of another species in action. And Mr. Jackman scores as the two-fisted, confrontational Wolverine, a mutant with superstrength, an ability to heal all wounds and metal-alloy claws that shoot out from his knuckles. He lives to fight, a boisterous tragic hero with no complications. Otherwise, the movie is an earnest affair that is clumsy when it should be light on its feet; it takes itself even more seriously than the comic book does, though its fans may be overjoyed by that devotion (Mitchell).

Film Series

''THE GOLDEN AGE OF FOREIGN FILM.'' The title says all. Spanning the years from 1945 to 1965, this 52-film series brings together the landmarks of an outburst of post-World War II cinematic creativity. The series embraces movements like Neo-Realism and the French New Wave; great directors like Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Roberto Rossellini and Francois Truffaut, and stars like Marcello Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Anna Magnani, Brigitte Bardot, Toshiro Mifune and Jeanne Moreau. Today and tomorrow, this feast of cinematic riches presents two landmark New Wave films by Truffaut, ''The 400 Blows'' (1959), the director's autobiographical first feature; and ''Jules and Jim'' (1961), with Ms. Moreau playing the enigmatic woman who enchants two men. On Sunday, Ray's Apu trilogy concludes with ''The World of Apu'' (1959), which shares a bill with the Russian director Sergei Paradjanov's Romeo and Juliet tale, ''Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors'' (1964). The series continues through Sept. 14 at Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, in the South Village. Tickets: $9; $5 for members. Screening schedule and information: (212) 727-8110 (Lawrence Van Gelder).